September 17th, 2010
On our way back from the amazing experience in Wayanad, Kerala, the team stopped for a special lunch at Om Shanthi in Mysore, the second biggest city in Karnataka. The ambience of celebration was palpable among the group members. Most of us had had the time to finally take a brief nap, rejoice in our freshly formed memories and stare out the window and reflect. Being rejuvenated and feeling accomplished from the week, we were ready to celebrate our guru’s birthday. Happy birthday Roshen! Around the table there was nothing but laughter and constant story telling. However, as the good social justice students that we try to be, we could not help but remark how many Coca-Cola products were being consumed and joke on how Roshen was not happy by the fact. What a way to spoil his birthday! After lunch, and before catching the train back to Bangalore, we visited the Mysore Palace. Here, we were actually going to be surprised in a not so pleasant way.
The palace is beautiful and represents in a magnificent way the clash of religions, and the respect for that clash that exists in India. It is a brilliant blend of Indo-Saracenic, Oriental and Roman styles of architecture, containing religious temples for Islam, Hinduism and Christianity. The palace that is present today is in fact the forth one to stand in that same place. It was designed by the English architect Henry Irwin and constructed in 1912 to replace the precedent Hindu-styled palace that was burnt down in a fire that broke out during the wedding of the oldest daughter of Maharaja Chamaraja Wodeyar in 1897.
Although beautiful and containing a vibrating history, the Mysore Palace is also a reminder to the fact that India is a rich country; a rich country with a lot of poor people. Among other bestialities the palace serves as storage place for a wooden elephant howdah that is decorated with 84 kilograms of gold, a Royal throne made of 200kgs of pure gold, and the “most beautiful door in the world”. Also, it takes ninety seven thousand light bulbs to illuminate the palace, which happens every Sunday and on festivities. Nonetheless I believe that what shocked us the most was the proud tone of our tour guide when he went on and on about how expensive the décor was and proceeded then to explain where it all came from as if it was a checklist. Stainless glass from Scotland, chandeliers from the Czech Republic…
According to our tour guide, all the expenses of this palace were paid by profits made in trading spices and coffee. Globalization therefore. This fact is certainly historically correct. However, it may be more accurate to say that it was by exploiting those people, who now live in slums, that all this was paid for.
Jonathan Steinwand
jnoelgac
ksmeerki
Alex Christensen
blvue
jerichowestendorf
Rachel Mathiowetz
jfreetly
devaneylbuffalo
julioc348
Megan Wilkes
kibberson
tnlegatt
alandave
kateolsen4
jmariebraun
wadeunderwood
Is this kind of exploitation that much different – or any worse than – the kind of exploitation that occurs in the U.S. where there are also extremes of poverty? Is the poverty in India far worse than that in the U.S. (I believe at the pre-departure orientation either I or Jonathan said that even the poorest person in the U.S. is better off than the poorest person in India – but were we right??). Think about the great disparities of wealth in the western world. Why is this less shocking than the disparities in India?